Beginning next term, a new group of peer advisors will offer support and information to students who have concerns about eating disorders.
Although the group of 27 students does not yet have an official name, they are currently undergoing training to serve as peer advisors for studentscoping with eating disorders, Marcia Herrin, coordinator of the College's nutrition education program and the group's faculty advisor, said.
The group was initiated by Scott Jacobs '99 and is co-headed by Melissa Rikard '99.
Herrin said the students are being trained by the eating disorders treatment team at Dick's House to learn how to assist students with eating disorders and help them identify disordered eating behavior.
Each year about 50 Dartmouth students with eating disorders go to Dick's House for help, Herrin said.
In 1995, a survey conducted by Psychology Professor Todd Heatherton revealed that one in four Dartmouth women displays eating disorder symptoms. Herrin said one in 20 has a "full-blown case" of an eating disorder.
The survey found more than 80 percent of Dartmouth women wanted to lose weight, and 40 percent of Dartmouth men wanted to gain weight.
Nationally, 10 percent of people who have eating disorders are males, but at Dartmouth, very few are males, according to the survey.
Jacobs helped found the group during his campaign for Student Assembly president, but he said it was a program he would have started even if he was not seeking office.
After seeing three friends from home hospitalized because of eating disorders and talking with a group of patients, he said he decided culture is to blame for the current preponderance of eating disorders in America.
"Something is wrong with a culture that imposes these ideals [of being thin] on people," Jacobs said.
The main responsibilities of the advisors will be to help students identify eating disorders and to let them know how they can seek help, Herrin said.
She said the advisors are not trained counselors, but instead will serve as intermediaries advising students of methods for getting help for themselves or for friends who have eating disorders or show eating disorder symptoms..
Director of Health Resources Gabrielle Lucke said the eating disorder peer advisors are similar to the advisors for the two other peer groups on campus -- the Sexual Abuse Peer Advisors and the Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisor.
She also said the asdvisors will serve as the first contact for students concerned about a health problem.
Students will be able to identify the eating disorder peer advisors by signs on their residence hall doors showing their willingness to discuss eating disorder issues.
Herrin said the College's department of health services hopes to publish a booklet with biographies of all the eating disorders peer advisors sometime in the future, so that students can find someone with whom they would feel comfortable talking.
